A VERDICT in the Greenock fire bombings murder conspiracy trial is expected today.

A jury of nine women and five men began their deliberations just after 2pm yesterday following more than 90-minutes of legal direction by judge Lord Mulholland.

Two men — Craig McFarlane and Cain Carr — remain on trial after four others tendered guilty pleas last week.

Defence advocate George Gebbie, for Carr, told the jury yesterday that his client had come 'close' to proving his innocence.

Carr, 23, said he made a round trip from Kirkintilloch to Greenock in the middle of night to buy cocaine at the time of an attempt to murder a six-year-old girl.

He had travelled in a Rover 45 vehicle — driven by bomber Kieran McAnally — prior to and after the petrol bombing of a house on Cumberland Road, Larkfield, whilst the child slept upstairs.

Carr, who has lodged a special defence of incrimination, told the High Court that he had refused a request to be involved in the attack and was with a drug dealer in a common close elsewhere during a 45-minute period of time.

In his closing speech, advocate Mr Gebbie said that 'no witness has contradicted' Carr's account.

Mr Gebbie said that evidence of Carr's mobile phone connecting with a cell site in the vicinity of the targeted house pointed to 'secondary coverage' and not 'primary coverage' of his client's location.

He added that there was no evidence of Craig McFarlane being in phone communication with Carr, and told the jury: "If you refuse to do something you are not part of the conspiracy."

McFarlane, 26, chose not to give evidence in the case after lodging a special defence of alibi.

Iain McSporran KC, for McFarlane, and advocate depute Paul Kearney KC, completed their speeches to the jury on Tuesday.

Carr has lodged a special defence of alibi.

Mr Gebbie told the jury that the Crown had 'not produced one bit' of evidence to place Cain Carr at the scene of the Cumberland Road attack.

Robert Warnock, 26, Brendan O'Donnell, 24, Drew Darling, 28, and Kieran McAnally, 26, last week admitted involvement in a series of after-dark attacks, which occurred amid a hate-fuelled feud, in 2020.

The targets of the attacks were the parents of Warnock's arch enemy Lenny Cole — Leonard Cole snr and Rosaleen Sutherland, Cole's aunt Ellen Cole, her son Connor Leadbetter, Cole's uncle Alexander Sutherland, Kieran Murphy and the child.

All of the fire bombings came after Warnock's younger brother, Reece, 18, was attacked by Lenny Cole, 23, and his half-brother Andrew Sutherland, 33, in Port Glasgow on August 27, 2019.

Sutherland is serving a prison sentence for trying to kill Reece Warnock, who died around two months after the attack.

The Cole family home on Greenock's Union Street was targeted twice, on July 13 and September 14 in 2020.

The Cumberland Road property was petrol bombed on September 19 that year.

George Miller, 46, accidentally torched himself to death during the second of the two Union Street incidents.